Day 7

Today in the lecture we were meant to about Digital Creativity, i.e. net.art and electronic literature, however unfortunately the guest speaker was unable to attend the class. So the topic was changed to electronic music and the changes over time in how music is created. Although having said that we spent much of the lecture trying to define electronic music.

At the being of the lecture we watched a YoutTube anime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfsR-XphEWg. which shows an edited anime film that has a Muppet song over the top. The way it is edited to look like the characters are singing along to the Muppet's. It was very clever. but with copyright law doing that would be illegal. Unlike if it was protected by the creative commons contract.

Electronic music is music that is produced by electric musical instruments or electronic processing. In this modern world, a lot of the music that we listen too has been recorded electronically or even if its being played live there are electronic amps and other aids to get the sound across. Electronic music can also be produced and playing using electronically made sounds. Today we have many names for this style of music the most commonly used term is Dance, Techno, or Hip Hop music. These styles of music have been in development since the 70's with Disco using these synthesized sounds in the songs.

The first synthesizer to appear was the Blucha in 1963, the idea behind this came from Morton Subotnick, who had the idea of a 'black box' that composers could have in their home to create their own music from a home studio. Another synthesizer, came in the form of a piano styled keyboard and was the invented by Richard Moog in 1964. Although these synthesizers where originally for art composition it wasn't long before they were embraced by popular culture, and in the late 70's early 80' more and more people were interested in creating songs and music with completely synthesized instruments and tunes. In the 70's the group Kratwerk, who used Moog synthesizers, where known for catchy, synthesized melodies. They were influential for many following electronic musicians. In both America and the UK this sort of music was developing through the 80's and the 90's and was very popular in the 80's and 90's club and rave scene. Today it is still predominant in the club scene but the jungle, acid, house genres of the 90's are more underground and dance tends to be a more commercial genre of music.

At the end of the lecture we watched a documentary of the history of this music called 'Modulations' by Lara Lee.